News and Opinion

Who is on Question Time tonight and where do they stand on Brexit? Here’s your guide… The BBC’s flagship current affairs programme tonight comes from Cannock, the Staffordshire town in which TV writer Jed Mercurio grew up. But who will be a runaway ratings success like Bodyguard – and who will be a quickly-forgotten ’70s […]

A question from Caroline Lucas on the ‘will of the people’ has infuriated the prime minister, who insists she’s acting on the country’s behalf with Brexit. The prime minister was forced to dismiss the Green MP’s question as ‘absolutely ridiculous’ when she told her that opinion had changed on Brexit. Lucas was responding to May’s […]

A Lib Dem MP has faced fury from his own party after he vowed to vote for Theresa May’s Brexit deal when it is put before the Commons. Stephen Lloyd said he would be unable to back his party’s official stance on Brexit and would instead back the Withdrawal Agreement in the ‘meaningful vote’ when […]

Radio broadcaster and Brexiteer Nick Ferrari has ridiculed the ERG as ‘Dud’s Army’ – in front of former Brexit secretary David Davis. Davis hosted a ‘Global Britain’ event alongside European Research Group chairman Jacob Rees-Mogg and former deputy leader of the Conservative party Peter Lilley. The panel of seven – all old white men – […]

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL admits that he agrees with the European Research Group’s analysis of Theresa May’s Brexit plan.. I promise I have not taken leave of my senses (though there is plenty of madness in our politics right now). But may I make a little piece of New European history, by opening a column with, as […]

Michael Gove has left Twitter users incredulous after sharing results from an online quiz about TV show Game Of Thrones on his official Twitter account. The tweet, sent at 11.20am today, left many Twitter users asking why the secretary of state for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) was not using his […]

Brexit was only meant to be a game for politicians, and was never intended to happen, a leading Irish journalist has explained. Fintan O’Toole said that the Brexiteers only intended for the EU referendum to be used for political purposes, and they did not plan for winning. He told James O’Brien on LBC that the […]

The owner of pub chain JD Wetherspoon is to go on a massive pub crawl to try to convince people everyone will be better off ‘from day one’ with a no-deal Brexit. Despite the Confederation of Business Industry (CBI) warning of the risks of a no deal, Tim Martin is so sure that the naysayers […]

Before jetting off to Brussels to face Jean-Claude Juncker, the prime minister had to take on Jeremy Corbyn. But, after once again stating that his party could do little to stop Brexit, how could he attack her stance on how we leave the European Union? He kicked off with a question about crashing out: ‘Does […]

A Labour frontbencher has broken ranks with the party leadership and called unequivocally for the people to have a say on the final Brexit deal. Steve Reed, Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow culture minister, has written in London’s Evening Standard newspaper that a fresh referendum was the only way to unblock the impasse facing Parliament. It comes […]

Broadcaster Melvyn Bragg has hit out at ‘leading wimp’ David Cameron and the ‘squirearchal, hedge funding, over-privileged’ Brexiteers. The South Bank Show host did not mince his words in a colourful interview that discussed the state of British politics in 2018. The Labour peer said that responsibility for Brexit fell with former prime minister Cameron […]

A Tory MP is reported to have refused to vote with the government after a newspaper columnist said colleagues described him as “thick as mash”. Andrew Bridgen, a Brexiteer MP who last week claimed 48 letters of no confidence in Theresa May had been sent but were being hidden by Sir Graham Brady, chairman of […]

Tory rebel Ken Clarke will support Theresa May’s Brexit deal despite calling it a ‘dog’s breakfast’. Despite Clarke being one of the most outspoken pro-EU MPs in the Conservative party, and even voting against the triggering of Article 50, the Conservative MP has said he will support the prime minister’s proposed deal in parliament. Clarke […]

A prominent Conservative MP has called for a second referendum or a general election if a Withdrawal Agreement cannot be struck with the EU. And chairman of the Commons Culture Committee Damian Collins said he would not back Theresa May’s current deal when it is voted on in the House. He added that he wanted […]

Parliament will not accept a no-deal Brexit, Cabinet minister Amber Rudd has said. And she warned Tory rebels that Brexit may not go ahead if MPs reject Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement in a House of Commons vote expected next month. The work and pensions secretary was speaking as May came under pressure from TBrexiteers to […]

Nigel Farage has addressed Danny Dyer’s comments in which he called the former UKIP leader a ‘pr*ck in a suit’ who had now ‘lost his voice’. Actor Danny Dyer restated his political views in an interview with the Big Issue where he express sympathy for prime minister Theresa May, and slammed both Boris Johnson and […]

The number of antidepressants prescribed in England rose after the EU referendum compared with other drugs, a study says. National events, such as elections and financial crises, can affect mental health, researchers said. So they set out to examine whether there was a rise in antidepressant prescriptions in England after the Brexit referendum in June […]

I recently wrote to the Department for Exiting The European Union. On November 7 I received an email from them, reading, ‘Thank you for contacting the Department for Exiting the European Union with your query. Please find a response to your correspondence attached. Sincerely, DExEU Correspondence Team’. Attached was a message: ‘Thank you for contacting […]

A People’s Vote is the only way out for MPs who are too afraid to vote with their conscience, says DAVID COLLINS. I have had a very interesting chat with my Labour MP about Brexit and the People’s Vote. His position is that although he did not campaign for it in the referendum, a near-60% […]

For those who didn’t get a say in the original EU referendum they are hoping that there will be a People’s Vote so their voices can finally be heard. I am 20 years old and currently taking a second gap year to focus on the campaign I started to provide a youth voice on Brexit: […]

#76 Leo Tolstoy. September 9, 1828 – November 20, 1910 The station building is incongruously large for its rural setting. An imposing two-storey red brick construction, it looks out of place serving a backwater 230 miles south-east of Moscow where a regional passenger shuttle trundles in and out a few times a day and the […]

Nadine Dorries has said she does not want Theresa May ousted – despite submitting a letter of no confidence in the prime minister. The Tory MP and Brexiteer said that it was a ‘tactical decision’ not to submit all 48 letters at once, and that it was designed to be a ‘burning fuse’. She believed […]

Confirming what many on the Remain side already feared, David Davis has been accused of not understanding the Brexit process. Davis has claimed in his latest remarks that the United Kingdom could still enter a transition period if it was to crash out of the EU without a deal. He wrote on the ConservativeHome website: […]

24 Tory MPs have so far publicly declared they have no confidence in Theresa May as prime minister. Here’s who they are Steve Baker 47, Wycombe Short-lived Brexit minister and Tory hardliner who is sceptical about climate change and opposed to same-sex marriage. A co-founder in 2015 of Conservatives for Britain, a group of 50 […]

An outspoken Brexiteer has said that new Brexit negotiations should only take 10 minutes to agree – before he accused the BBC of being pro-Remain for disproving his claims. The former deputy leader of the Conservative party Peter Lilley claimed that it was possible for Theresa May to change her stance in a very short […]

Jacob Rees-Mogg has defended his Dad’s Army operation to unseat Theresa May as PM, saying “I’ve always admired Captain Mainwaring”. Speaking at a press conference in Westminster, the leader of the European Research Group (ERG) of hardline Tory MPs denied he was trying to mount a “coup” against May, insisting he was using the legitimate […]

Theresa May’s unravelling Brexit deal hit a new roadblock today as Spain’s prime minister threatened to vote it down over Gibraltar. Pedro Sanchez said his country woulf vote against the divorce agreement between the EU and the UK if Gibraltar’s future was not considered a bilateral issue between Madrid and London. The UK and the […]

The economic turmoil of the Great Depression produced plenty of downbeat realism but also escapist whimsy. SOPHIA DEBOICK reports The industrialised world was in the grip of the Great Depression in 1931, the devastating effects of the Wall Street Crash still being felt and only getting worse. As the Empire State Building was completed as […]

Theresa May is facing yet more challenges on her Brexit plans – with a ‘warning shot’ from the DUP and an objection to the draft agreement from Spain. Allies on the edge The prime minister’s DUP allies delivered a shot across the bows by withdrawing their support in a series of Commons votes. They accused […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY on the story behind a gothic classic, and its latest incarnation. The harbour at Dieppe, nudging into the quietly bustling centre of a town that was traditionally a draw for writers and artists from both sides of the Channel, is now a marina where the tinkle of halyards against yacht masts betrays no […]

Labour could attempt to bring down the government in a desperate bid to foil a no-deal Brexit, Sir Keir Starmer has warned. The shadow Brexit secretary told the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) he would work with MPs from across the Commons to halt a damaging hard Brexit. He added that Labour would use any parliamentary […]

Jeremy Corbyn has again disappointed supporters who want him to back a People’s Vote by saying a “good Brexit plan” would be a “catalyst for economic transformation” in the UK. The Labour leader told business leaders his Brexit plan would include a “radical programme of investment” and fundamental changes to the way the economy works. […]